The Spore
by Rachel2
Summary: Her right hand balled into a fist and she whacked at her chest a handful of times. No more rare quarrels, no rude hand gestures thrown about, no taunting and prodding of the brain. Will Spike notice what he's been missing? SF


**The Spore**

**By: Rachel***

**Rated: PG-13**

**Genre: Romance/Comedy******

**E-mail: PeachGirlKiley@aol.com**

**Web Address: www.Spike-Faye-Shrine.cjb.net**

**A quick one shot between fanfics. Enjoy. ^_^ As always, S+F**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy Bebop**

**          _You were cryogenically frozen._**

          The doctor, who had cared for Faye, in Spike's personal opinion was a little off his rocker. However the words that had floated from his lips into the radio receiver could stir any person out of a catatonic state in mere seconds.

          She hadn't lied to him. Well, she hadn't lied to him completely, he'd give her that much.

**          _Believe what you like…_**

          Believe what? That she was in fact technically seventy-four years old? Three times older than him, and yet sometimes she seemed fit to be stuck in a highchair with her thumb stuck in her mouth. Childish was the nicest word that came to mind. Her acts were juvenile, and down right babyish.

          It was eleven o'clock or so. His figure was shadowed in the hall as he gaped at her. Faye lay on the couch with a box of cheese-curls and a soda. Another thing that irked him about Faye was how the hell did she stay so thin? He knew she'd on occasion go to the workout room, however that would usually only be after one of their quarrels that he noticed were growing rarer by the second. All women that he'd known would either diet occasionally, or the entire time that he knew them. Faye though, she ate what she liked and still managed to keep her shape.

          Faye Valentine, was that even her real name? For all he knew the doctor from the cryo-clonic could have made up his whole story about Faye. A simple fabrication that now taunted and prodded at his brain, teasing him. He swallowed the ball forming in the back of his throat before it choked him.

          He moved his fingers to his thick lop of green hair and proceeded to rake his fingers through the mass until he was content enough to stop.

          Faye stirred and grabbed a yellow cotton blanket off the top of the lime green couch. Her head was rested on the off-white pillow stained with the cigarette smoke that lingered in the room at all hours of the day and night.

          He turned his head to one side as his tall lean frame leaned into the doorway. He once again found himself transfixed on Faye. The vixen had flown into his life like a plague to all nations. The spore known as Faye had singled him out as the strongest of his kind. He would be the carrier of her tantalizing disease. A sickness that he if kept hidden would surely wreak havoc among whichever planet he so desire to take a breath of air from.

          The spore smiled and let out a hushed laughter before popping a cheese-curl into her mouth. Spike swallowed another ball in his throat and gaped some more. She moved again, sitting up she began to cough.

          Spike sighed and let his eyes slid shut thinking about Faye and what her past might hold for her. Good things or bad? She proceeded to cough. Spike's chocolate brown eyes opened.

          Her right hand balled into a fist and she whacked at her chest a handful of times. Spike found himself staring at her, lips parted eyes wide. He cleared his throat. "Faye, you alright?" he acted nonchalant, like he hadn't been there the whole time listening to her series of coughs and spattered gasps for breath.

          The spore's vibrant green eyes teared with each dispelled cough. Spike took another step closer to deaths door. She looked back at him.

          Spike's face once worried was now deathly aware of how bad this situation could become. Moments from now the spore could die, and all the words of havoc would come to a standstill. No more rare quarrels, no rude hand gestures thrown about, no taunting and prodding of the brain.

          Nothing, the spore would die without its host, without the havoc spread across the universe that Spike had predicted. The spore known as Faye…would die.

          Spike took another heart wrenching step. "It—" Faye choked and bent forward, gagging.

          Spike's eyes remained the size similar to the freakishly large size of an owl's eyes. A creature he'd never seen in person, but had read about and seen pictures of in the wide selection of books he enjoyed to read. He moved his jaw to speak but found himself mute by Faye's desperate cry.

          "Jesus," Spike muttered and walked around the lime green couch and in-between the spore and Spike's favorite metal coffee table. The top kept its scratched metal, metallic color, while the sides were painted orange.

          Spike straddled his legs over Faye's due to the lack of space between his favorite table which, he dare not scratch the orange sides of.

          She shuttered and let out a horse cry and hit her chest again. Spike thought over the situation.

          Here, he was face to face with the venomous spore…alone. He could just picture himself curling up into a fetal ball and weeping on the spot. No one was there to administer a vaccine against this monster.

          She looked up at him and Spike's owl eyes returned to normal and in an instant were filled with true fright. Tears were spilling over her emerald eyes and flowing down her flushed face.

          Her normally ruby-red lips now were growing pale compared to her flushed face reddening with each struggled gag for air. She was choking to death…on a cheese-curl? He looked around and realized that there was a bag of candy at the base of the cough. The bag held variations of cadies, but mainly Faye's favorite. Small marble sized jawbreakers.

          Flinging his arms out Spike turned Faye around and pulled her against his chest. Her fingers dug into the tanned skin of his arms, leaving white nail marks that later would turn red and swollen, bleed, or end up leaving a bruises by morning. "You'll be okay…" He pulled his arms back and in one quick motion drove his arms back into her chest. He repeated the task several times before the little red ball flew out of her mouth and onto the metal floor. It tapped twice and then rolled into the wall opposite them.

          Faye took huge gulps of air and coughed gagging one more time. Spike sighed and closed his eyes letting his head roll back. He was infected. Faye had come in contact with her singled out victim. She wove him into her trap and now he was stuck there for all eternity, damned to rot in hell, fire and brimstone—

          "Thank you…" Spike stopped dead in his tracks. Thank you? Thank you, were words that came from a creature that was grateful, of something that had a kindness in its heart. Not a spore with a childish personality that lived off candy, soda and beer—yet there she was.

          Her knees bent, her left ankle lay trapped under his left knee. Her tears were beginning to subside now, and she hastily reached for her soda can.

          "N…not a problem," Spike stuttered and leaned over to his precious coffee table and grabbed her Pepsi off the metal surface. It slipped a bit in his fingers; the condensation on the can nearly caused a catastrophe that would surely send her over the edge. Her savior or not, Faye would kill him if he spilled her drink.

          His eyes once again grew into their owl sized shape as she leaned her head into his chest. Was this exhaustion, or an epileptic seizer? Spike wanted to pull away he was already infected he didn't want a lethal dosage to kill him off right away…

          Her fingers laced around his broad frame. Spike was once again was gawking, starring and sputtering like a buffoon. Faye sighed, and when she pulled back to look at her pray she laughed. "You look like an idiot."

          Spike blinked. Idiot? 

****

**A person of profound mental retardation having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers.**** The term belongs to a classification system no longer in use and is now considered offensive. **

**_— The American Heritage Dictionary_**

          Idiot?  Spike ran the definition over again in his mind. He was the one singled out, the cream of the crop, the top of the list. He screamed: I'm a stupid fool—

          "Idiot?" Spike muttered under his breath. The cool façade wall he'd built up as being a lady killer fell just as quickly as it was built.

          Faye mocked him. She opened her eyes as wide and she could and cocked her head to one side. "All you need is a little bit of drool to come running out the corners of your mouth, and you're set." She smirked poking him in the cheek.

          Spike eyed her carefully. He didn't like this cute act of hers. He was tempted to make it stop. Since when did she start poking cheeks, and laughing with him, smiling even? Then again, he'd kept himself away from the spore. Was the root of all evils…just a girl?

          A normal well standing, slightly annoying at times, yet…"Beautiful," the worlds rolled off his tongue like a noodle slipping away from your chopsticks, and landing smack dab on your brand new pants.

          Beautiful, a word to bring light to any conversation had killed the one he was having with Faye. She blinked once, then twice, and by the third blink she'd backed away from him and curled into a small ball at the corner of the lime green couch.

          "Spike…?" She shook her head. Spike's mouth ran dry; it was as if someone had stuffed mounds of cotton-balls all into his mouth at once.

          Spike raced for an answer. "Beautiful…weather, we should go outside." Spike coughed up the mounds of cotton-balls. Pride overcame him and he felt a foot taller than before.

          Faye blinked again. Her eyebrows grew near to each other. Just as Spike thought they would touch, Faye relaxed her face muscles and nodded.

          "Sure, if you say so." Spike sighed and taking a dangerous risk offered her, his hand.

          Faye looked him over from top to bottom before taking it and beginning hoisted to her feet. Sighing, he closed his eyes and walked to the door. A roar of thunder clashed and Faye shuttered.

          Spike felt short again. "Thunder?" he tried to act surprised. The spore was gullible.

          Spike looked at her and she bowed her head down. Spike glanced at her and leaned into the stairwell to the launch platform for their Zip Crafts. She laughed quietly at first before erupting into spits of laughter that brought tears to her eyes.

          Spike narrowed his two-toned eyes. "What's so funny?" He snarled.

          She arched an eyebrow up at him and controlled her riot. "You need to learn how to lie better." She sighed and stood next to him. "Thank you, though."

          Spike's thoughts of the spore began to unravel and change. He looked at her. "Lie? What are you talking about, it was nice out a minute ago, I swear!" He pleaded with her and stared some more into her stunning green eyes.

          "Sure-sure…" She laughed and looked outside. She saw a flash of lightening. "One…two…three—" the loud shuttering rumble sent a shiver down Faye's spine.

          Spike smirked. "You're afraid of thunderstorms, aren't you?" He'd found her weakness.

          Faye nodded. "It's the one thing I can remember from my childhood; I just have a sickening fear of thunderstorms." She'd given him a direct answer. Looking at her Spike wanted to look away. Her eyes were different, distant, and close at the same time.

          Her right hand reached up to his face and laid down on his cheek. Spike closed his eyes and parted his lips letting out a puff of air to the cold touch of her fingers against his warm skin.

          "Faye…" He whispered. Spike swallowed and kept his eyes shut. He was cornered and she was going in for the kill.

          She kissed him. Spike's eyes shut tightly at first and he dreaded this. He'd received the lethal dosage, and could feel the death and havoc spreading already… She pulled back and Spike's eyes opened slowly to peer down into her eyes.

          Faye coughed and backed away. "I…" She shook her head. "I'm didn't mean that."

          Didn't mean it? She'd infected him with the worst fathomable sickness imaginable, and now she goes and says that she didn't mean it? He reached out for her shoulders and pressed his lips to hers.

          Love, liking, admiration, desire, passion…words of deceit, and malice that drew men to think the unthinkable...

          These things led to marriage, fatherhood, and _commitment_. Kissing the spore would lead to more of these thoughts, fabricating them into possible, _positive_ thoughts.

          Faye pulled back and buried her face in the crook of his neck while running her fingers through his hair. "I…" She was breaking him. Her right hand ran down his chest, while the left remained locked in his hair, and her lips laid kissed down his neck with persistent little bites that were viciously fabricating those positive thoughts. "I love you." There went a whole bowl of noodles into his lap. 

          Love, the spore's decease was no longer a spore with a havocking sickness that would pelage the words, but a beautiful tall, thin girl. Her violet locks felt like silk against his face as her lips met his again. Love had turned into green eyes and soft skin against his fingers as his right hand ran down her arm and his gaze met hers.

          She stared at him, her lips parted. Spike's eyes were warm and welcoming. Was he saying this to her, or to some phantom of his past?

          "You really love me," Spike smirked as she stared at him in shock. He nodded. "Faye Valentine?" Spike leaned forward and kissed her again.

          "Yes Faye…You," he stared as her, his gaze getting lost in hers. The root of all evils wasn't so bad once he'd faced it. His fear was juvenile, and he suddenly found himself thinking that it was him who was the childish one, and the one who taunted and teased. "I love you." He kissed her.

**The End**

**R+R! I hope you liked this! I serenely enjoyed writing it! ^_^**


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